Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 

The rundown: In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches. But even as she prepares to leave her fellow Links, CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.

The review: I loved this book so much, and I could probably write a novella about all the ways I enjoyed it. Since that’s not what any of us are here for, I’ve decided to focus this review on 2 particular elements that really hit home for me. 

First is how thoroughly Adjei-Brenyah has depicted the modern PIC (prison industrial complex) as a complex network that was built and is reinforced by so many interlocking elements. There’s the obvious, of course, such as the systemic racism made glaringly clear with the footnotes and how a capitalistic ideology props up the prison system and measures imprisoned people in monetary value: how much profit can be earned from a chain member wearing sponsored armor; the blood points, worth fractions of a fraction of a penny, earned for kills made. 

What I enjoyed even more, though, were the less dramatic ways Adjei-Brenyah makes his point. The chapter on the scientist who unintentionally developed the research used to create the Influencer, which was co-opted and twisted for a terrible purpose by the CEO of an arms company. The guard/driver of the Angola-Hammond Chain, who understands, to some degree, the wrongness but continues to do his work because he needs the paycheck. Further, Adjei-Brenyah draws familial ties between the CEO of ArcTech™️ and a cofounder of the largest private prison corporation in the Chain-Gang world using footnotes on two different pages. Such a small thing, but so powerful. Same with Gunny Puddles’ single POV chapter, which demonstrates so harshly disenfranchised white people’s resentment of POC: “The worst part is they have the audacity to think they have it worst.” And though his decision to include so many different character POVs makes the book less character-driven than it could have been and, of course, means that we spend less time with Loretta and Staxxx, taken altogether it powerfully reinforces the point of the incredible complexity of the systems bracing the modern PIC.

Second, I so enjoyed how much of a voyeur Adjei-Brenyah made me feel, particularly through the character Emily. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but it very much heightened my interaction with the book. Like the character, who initially judged her boyfriend’s fascination with hard action sports and then eventually became sucked in herself, I also turned the pages with a sick fascination with what Adjei-Brenyah had constructed. Like her, I couldn’t look away. It was a fascinating way to make the reader, particularly this one who is similar in so many ways to this character, complicit. Because there’s a challenge there, I think. An implied “oh, so you felt some type of way about what you read? well, what are going to do about it?”. So good. 

Goes well with: Your favorite abolitionist text. I recommend Angela Y. Davis’, including Are Prisons Obsolete? and Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, and The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale.